Good Product Marketer, Bad Product Marketer

The idea for this article came from a letter Ben Horowitz (from Andreessen Horowitz) wrote 15+ years ago, which was originally written for Product Managers. The title was “Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager”.

At the time, he complained that many companies defined Product Management differently, and it was gravely misunderstood. I echo those sentiments now — but instead, from the lens of a Product Marketer.

Good Product Marketers understand their customer and target market, the various segments and personas of their customers, the customer journey, and have a macro pulse on their industry and market. A good product marketer is the CMO of the product. A good product marketer gathers feedback with surveys, 1:1 conversations with their customers, leads beta and early access tests, and (depending on the size and stage of a company), runs a customer advisory council with top customers. Good product marketers know why and what they’re building, and influence the product roadmap by helping product managers prioritize the right product features based on customer input.

Bad product marketers rely solely on Executive, Sales or Product Management opinion for feedback about the market and customer. Bad product marketers are not up to date on their industry, competition or alternative products. Bad product marketers don’t understand customer sentiment, and are in a reactive mode rather than an active mode. Bad product marketers say “yes” to every single request the Sales teams asks for.

Good product marketers build out positioning frameworks before building the Go-To-Market plan. Good product marketers run strategic Go-To-Market meetings with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure all stakeholders understand their responsibility for an upcoming product launch. Good product marketers assign KPI’s and metrics for each product launch. Good product marketers ensure company wide communication about high value products and features. Bad product marketers react to a product launch when Sales or Product asks them to build out marketing assets for a launch. Bad product marketers panic the day of a product launch. Bad product marketers don’t have the ability to influence others in the organization.

Good product marketers work closely with PR teams and Executives to manage a press release for a major product launch. Good product marketers create content and marketing strategy for tier 0 (high value) launches well in advance of launch day. Bad product marketers blame their workload when dropping the ball. Bad product marketers don’t take responsibility for the workload they are able to commit to and blame others when they fall short.

Good product marketers focus on customer acquisition and where customers are dropping off in the marketing funnel and are actively tracking these numbers. Bad product marketers learn about customer acquisition and retention by accident. Bad product marketers don’t stand up for themselves when they disagree about a product decision.

Good product marketers are savvy and know how to influence product decisions and understand customer sentiment by seeing patterns in the way customers are communicating about the product. Bad product marketers have very little emotional intelligence and believe that a handful of informal customer conversations that are not communicated company are sufficient data points on the market.

Good product marketers educate their teams about the value of the Go-To-Market planning process. Bad product marketers get pushed aside or ignored when implementing the Go-to-Market plan.

Good product marketers ensure that their teams are trained on new product launches and features, and that the company is internally ready to serve a customer when they commercially launch a new product. Bad product marketers find out what the company needs from a sales enablement and customer service perspective after a product launch from customer complaints.

Good product marketers don’t waste time on projects that don’t add value. Good product marketers do not take on every single project and initiative the is asked of them. Good product marketers set priorities and boundaries of their projects at the start of the quarter with the CEO or Executive team to ensure their work is aligned with the greater company goal and mission. Bad product marketers work on whichever customer complaint is the loudest while dropping the ball on any and all new revenue generating products and launches.

Good product marketers create up to date Go-To-Market plans so that everyone in the organization knows exactly what product launches are coming up and all of the outstanding action items and teams responsible. Bad product marketers respond to emails and slack messages all day long from various departments about various parts of the go-to-market process.

Good product marketers work with product managers to answer the what, why, how, and when of a product launch, and work in sync to deliver the right product and the right time to the right market. Bad product marketers create a few marketing assets and hope for the best.

If you liked this article and want more, please give me a clap! If you’d like to learn more about Product Marketing, stay in touch! And if you’re seriously interested in go-to-market, check out my website where I offer live and online classes.

I also wrote the book “Product Marketing Debunked. The Essential Go-To-Market Guide” which you can purchase on Amazon.

My latest book, The Launch: A Product Marketer’s Guide — 50 key questions and lessons for a successful launch is now available on Amazon.